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Friday, June 7, 2013

Alonso expecting bad luck for Sebastian

(Reuters) Formula One Championship leader Sebastian Vettel’s luck is sure to run out some time this season and Ferrari need to make the most of any misfortune that he suffers, Fernando Alonso said on Thursday.

The Spaniard will start Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, the seventh round of the 19 race championship, 29 points behind Red Bull’s triple world champion who has yet to win in North America.

Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve has as one of its famed features the ‘Wall of Champions’, so named because of the number of champions’ cars it has claimed in races over the years, at the last corner.Alonso, who won in Canada with Renault in 2006 on his way to his second championship, has two points more at this stage than last year when he led the championship. But Vettel has been scoring more.

“What is a little bit out of normality at the moment is the points that Sebastian has scored in these six races,” the Ferrari driver told reporters.

“We need to try to finish in front of him. Unlucky races will come to everyone and will come to him as well. It came to [Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen] in Monaco with the accident and we are very close, only five points behind him.”

Raikkonen, second in the championship, collided with McLaren’s Mexican Sergio Perez in Monaco two weeks ago while in fifth place and had to scramble back to salvage 10th.

“It will come to Sebastian and in that race we need to maximise it,” said Alonso.

The Spaniard has already had his share of misfortune this season, some of it of his own making.

He banged into the back of Vettel’s car at the start in Malaysia, retiring a lap later while the German went on to win.

Then in Bahrain the DRS system on his car’s rear wing failed to close properly, forcing Alonso to make an unscheduled stop and sending him down to 18th. He finished eighth.

He won in China and Spain but in Monaco the Ferrari was slowed by debris picked up around the track including a piece of Perez’s McLaren.

“In Monaco, we didn’t score so many points so we need four or five consecutive races on the podium or close to the podium to recover some of the points we have missed,” he said. “This weekend, we must score good points.” (Reuters)